# Obama's college transcripts **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 21, 2012, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492 "2012-04-21T12:20:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/21 "2012-04-21T16:03:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, I was just giving a factual answer to a question posed by a poster. And the OP has not expressed any “outrage” nor has he implied that this is a “scandal”. We’re reading his posts differently. To my eyes he has most certainly implied that. In fact when he wrote that there may be discrepancies between Obama’s previous writings and the transcripts he came out and said it forthrightly. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/22 "2012-04-21T16:16:05Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > We’re reading his posts differently. To my eyes he has most certainly implied that. In fact when he wrote that there may be discrepancies between Obama’s previous writings and the transcripts he came out and said it forthrightly. YMMV, but I think there’s a difference between asking if there might be “x” and saying (or writing) that there might be “x”. At any rate, that’s all I have to say on the subject, as I don’t have any more facts to offer wrt the OP’s question and really don’t want to speculate on his motives in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/23 "2012-04-21T16:43:37Z")
Since the issue of Obama’s release or not of his transcripts is essentially political, this is perhaps better off in IMHO than GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/24 "2012-04-21T17:05:38Z")
OK, now that we’re outta GQ… True, it would be no advantage to Obama to release his transcripts. The only way it might be an issue is if Romney tries to do so, and in the process deflect some of the criticism he’s getting about his taxes. It doesn’t appear to have been common practice to release transcripts in the past, although Bush’s got out in 1999 and Kerry decided to release his in 2004. Whether the latter was only because of Bush’s transcripts being out there, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/25 "2012-04-21T17:06:46Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > Snopes says he hasn’t made his Columbia transcripts available[here.](http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/columbia.asp) > > Have there been any official explanations why not? > > How about his Harvard transcripts? > > Just the facts please. That’s it! I am certainly _not_ going to vote for Barry’s admission to grad school! ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/26 "2012-04-21T17:44:40Z")
Isn’t there someone on this board who’s stated that we (the public) are entitled to every document from Obama’s life that we want ( **susanann** , maybe)? My question is always - why? Why should Obama release his college or law school transcripts? What other presidents have done so, and for what reasons? Demanding an official explanation of his failure to release documents that other presidents also have not released smells ever so faintly of conspiracy theory. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/27 "2012-04-21T17:52:02Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > Reagan didn’t release his. Yep, a 1932 degree in economics and sociology did real good in a career in Hollywood, and had absolutely no bearing on being president in 1980 … :rolleyes: At least Obama managed to get elected before he merited being called part of a [Gerontocracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontocracy) … personally I am tired as hell of being run by people old enough to retire. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/28 "2012-04-21T17:56:39Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > I do. > > Another fact based question … without really thinking about it I assumed they might show something other than grades. Am I wrong in that? My law school transcripts contain no information other than my grades, cumulative average, and class rank. At least in law school the classes have easily understood names like “Torts” and “Legal Writing.” My undergrad transcript is a bunch of gibberish. Rs & Fl Civ. Nr E/Mesop. ANTH 203. That would be “The Rise and Fall of Civillizations in the Near East and Mesopotamia,” an archaeology class I took. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/29 "2012-04-21T17:59:48Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > Snopes says he hasn’t made his Columbia transcripts available[here.](http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/columbia.asp) > > Have there been any official explanations why not? > > How about his Harvard transcripts? > > Just the facts please. Worried that ol’ Mittens ain’t exactly going to set the electorate on fire, eh? It’s gonna be a sad, sad, tea party on November 7. Hope y’all take pictures! ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/30 "2012-04-21T18:04:28Z")
Transcripts and GPA are more or less pointless. Even in the job market, the vast majority of new hires coming out of college will get jobs (or not) based on networking or internships they did while in school. The ones who were poor at networking and had no internships _and_ can’t list a high GPA might have a more difficult time, but a lot of employers don’t even care about graduating college student GPA (although a decent portion do.) However by the time you’re experience and moving on to different jobs it’s almost (not totally) unheard of for an employer to give a shit about your GPA. Once you’ve actually started a career why does an employer care if you had a high GPA if you’ve done badly in your actual work up to that point, or why would they care about a low GPA if you’ve been excellent in your career? If Obama was applying to work for some company as a fresh faced college graduate, that company has some legitimate reasons for wanting his GPA. Obama is a 50+ year old man now with a lifetime of work experience behind him including work in the White House as President, his GPA is of no value in assessing his competency. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/31 "2012-04-21T18:10:18Z")
The Conspiracy Theory I heard bandied about was that Obama’s choice of classes would be “controversial”. That is, he allegedly took course like “Why Black People are Better than White People” or some such. Whatever it was, releasing the transcripts would just make the non-story even more of a legit story. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/32 "2012-04-21T18:14:56Z")
The college transcript thing may not be about grades: it may be about the classes he took. If people want to paint Obama as a sleeper radical, the courses he took could be slanted to be part of that narrative. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/33 "2012-04-21T18:16:43Z")
This thread is a perfect example of what the modern American conservative movement offers: no hope, no plan, no future; only nasty innuendo, paranoia and hate. All they have in the way of a platform is that they don’t like certain folk very much. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/34 "2012-04-21T18:20:06Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > I think I understand that there were some reasonable issues re the birth certificate that prevented him from putting it all out right way. He did put it out right away. After he did, the birthers decided they needed his long-form Birth Certificate. There wasn’t really any reason preventing him from releasing that other then the fact that the people asking didn’t really matter and weren’t going to vote for him anyways. Releasing it wouldn’t help him, and would just advance the treadmill where the conspiracy theorists decide there’s some other obscure document that they _need_ to see. When he did evenutally release the longer birth certificate, it was because he needed a joke at the WH Correspondents Dinner, which suggests getting it wasn’t actually that hard and he didn’t put a lot of importance in disproving conspiracy theories. I imagine its basically the same deal with his transcripts. The public already basically knows his GPA (both admission to Harvard Law and Magna Cum Laude have a high minimum GPA), the only ones asking for more don’t matter and aren’t going to vote for him regardless of what the transcript actually says. If his speech writers can think of a good joke to make out of it at the next WH Correspondents Dinner you might get to see his transcripts, otherwise your probably out of luck and will have to satisfy yourself with voting based on his record as President. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/35 "2012-04-21T18:22:29Z")
The OP writes as if he’s never seen a transcript and has no information about what might be on one. So I did a Google Image search for transcript. The very first one that comes up is [George’s Bush’s](http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&rlz=1B7GGHP_enUS457US457&tbm=isch&tbnid=xEDH8fFDfOWPFM:&imgrefurl=http://www.americanpolitics.com/bushtranscript.html&docid=QthrTjUwHYoALM&imgurl=http://www.americanpolitics.com/bushgeorgewtranscript.jpg&w=474&h=550&ei=WvmST49r8Y3pAbzXmbYE&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=99&vpy=170&dur=1846&hovh=242&hovw=208&tx=152&ty=126&sig=113663089449245367122&page=1&tbnh=145&tbnw=125&start=0&ndsp=14&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:136&biw=1280&bih=574). Does anyone want to go back and find a Yale course catalog from 1968 and figure out what History 35a and Philosophy 38b are? I’m not going to do so and I’d argue that anybody who bothered doing that work was a lunatic. Not even a partisan lunatic, just a lunatic. (Or a biographer, but biographers are lunatics in their own way.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/36 "2012-04-21T18:26:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Does anyone want to go back and find a Yale course catalog from 1968 and figure out what History 35a and Philosophy 38b are? You underestimate the passion that burns in the heart of the anti-Obama crowd. That’s child’s play compared to what has already been done. I was 17 as a college freshman. I would hate to think we would have to make our life-choices from that age available to the masses in order to run for public office. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/37 "2012-04-21T18:44:47Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Since the issue of Obama’s release or not of his transcripts is essentially political, this is perhaps better off in IMHO than GQ. > > Colibri > General Questions Moderator Perhaps… and it sure beat the alternatives didn’t it? BTW… nothing in this post or future posts in this thread should be used against me re my desire for the facts about the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/38 "2012-04-21T18:55:46Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > BTW… nothing in this post or future posts in this thread should be used against me re my desire for the facts about the issue. I’m curious. Once you subtract the purely partisan, what facts are left? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/39 "2012-04-21T19:23:59Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > This thread is a perfect example of what the modern American conservative movement offers: no hope, no plan, no future; only nasty innuendo, paranoia and hate. All they have in the way of a platform is that they don’t like certain folk very much. “Hope” is, like, so 2008 dude! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492/40 "2012-04-21T20:07:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You underestimate the passion that burns in the heart of the anti-Obama crowd. That’s child’s play compared to what has already been done. > > I was 17 as a college freshman. I would hate to think we would have to make our life-choices from that age available to the masses in order to run for public office. I had a major where there weren’t many options in electives if you were going to graduate in four years…and so some of my class choices were not really choices, but “I need two courses I can apply to my major this semester. And there are…two courses!” So I took a class on Propaganda - an interesting course, but not one that I’d want to see discussed out of context of being a Film Studies major with limited choices and in context of a presidential election. And I took one on Freud and Film Noir. Again, interesting course, but not necessarily one I’d want people to know I took out of context. ). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-college-transcripts/619492.md?page=3)